No, Hillary Did Not Commit a Crime?

I’ve now read two separate articles that definitively state that Hillary Clinton will not be charged with a crime regarding her handling of classified emails. Both articles use this one, originally posted at LawNewz.com, as a major basis for their reasoning.

I found the two linking articles to be full of mushy thinking, so I had very low expectations when I clicked on the linked one. To my surprise, the LawNewz article is extremely well thought out. It’s … reasonable.

That’s a high compliment from this blog.

How is it, then, that the two other articles went so terribly wrong?

Simple. They both either missed or dismissed a major, major qualification in the original, and that despite the qualification appearing in the title!

ANALYSIS: No, Hillary Clinton Did Not Commit a Crime … at Least Based on What We Know Today

Those last six words are important. And if putting that qualification in the title isn’t enough, check out this quote from the Conclusion:

To be clear, none of this means Clinton won’t be charged. There may be a trove of non-public evidence against her about which we simply do not know.

I completely agree with the premise of the article. As I’ve stated before in this blog, I have no idea if Hillary did anything wrong or not. Based on what we do know, there is sound reasoning to state that she absolutely will not be charged with a crime.

What we don’t know, however, is if the FBI has evidence that hasn’t been made public. Fox News is the only source that implies that such evidence exists (all unidentified sources with knowledge of the situation, of course). No offense to the fine reporters over at FNC, but it’s hard for me to take their word for it when we’re talking about negative press for Hillary.

The fact is, though, none of us, at this point, have any way of knowing if any such evidence exists. I’d agree with you if you say, “Ah, probably not.” On the other hand, it’s hard for a reasonable person to rule out the possibility. Thus, I can’t reasonably make a definitive statement that she will absolutely not be charged with a crime.

I fear I must find that the two aforementioned linking articles are … unreasonable.